


Words of Amber, Message of Gold

by InfinityIllusion



Category: Bleach, Kaze no Tani no Naushika | Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind
Genre: Alternate Universe - Apocalypse, Alternate Universe - Fusion, Gen, I Don't Even Know, I guess this is a Nausicaa fusion?, Like, M/M, Quincy are the giant warriors?, all the mutual pining, and a massive desert instead of a forest, but with Hollows instead of insects, sand gets everywhere even if the characters aren't constantly complaining about it
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-06-03
Updated: 2018-06-03
Packaged: 2019-05-17 17:30:50
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,854
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14836052
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InfinityIllusion/pseuds/InfinityIllusion
Summary: Seven years ago the war started.Seven years and the Shinigami were so devastated as to call upon the people they had once massacred for assistance.In one long battle the Quincy won, but the dead, instead of dissolving into reishi particles, fell to Earth and seeded it with sands and energy from Hueco Mundo.That is how the Withering Desert began.(Day 6: Apocalypse AU)





	Words of Amber, Message of Gold

**Author's Note:**

> Disclaimer: I still don't own Bleach.
> 
> So, uh, funny story, I actually really don't like Apocalypse fics? Which may or may not have a background in my absolute loathing of the book "Life as We Knew It," but that's neither here nor there. ( ~~Ichigo, please go mess with that book's moon~~ )
> 
> Anyways, I thought a lot about this, and somehow my brain went "Nausicaa takes place in an apocalyptic world. Use that!" And here we are.
> 
> Title comes from S. J. Tucker's "Sorrow's Song (Children of Dying Stars)," except, you know, I mixed up and misheard the lyrics, which actually say "I will give you beads of amber and feathers all of gold." I heard "Words of amber and messages all of gold."
> 
> Also, there's also a fair amount of loose ends and the would could be waaaaay better developed, but. Eh. I'm not super happy with it, but it is what it is and I need to stop procrastinating.
> 
> Responses coming tomorrow!
> 
> Also, WARNINGS FOR: referenced child abandonment, vaguely alluded to character death and child death, and people being assholes

* * *

The war had raged for seven years, the stories say.  No one knows who first knew this number or the war’s origin, who first told the story, but the number is consistent across most of the variations.

(If one were to ask a certain shopkeeper, who was around for the beginning, he would argue that the war had been mostly silent for over a century, and had only recently exploded into outright battle.

But then, almost no one does.)

Seven years, and not a Human person more aware of anything amiss apart from the odd explosions and increasingly common bizarre deaths.

In another world, fire rippled across the fields, turned glass to sand, but that merely provided more opportunities for illusions and eventually the volcanic fury was quenched.

This marked the first major loss of the war, and the first turning point.

And then the Quincy came, when the war finally spilled over, though the majority still remained blissfully clueless.  This was the second turning point, and the last.

(Ignorance is bliss, but bliss saves none.  Knowledge is a weapon.  Knowledge is power.)

* * *

_“Ichigo, honey, Mom’s going to leave for a while, but she’ll be back.”_

_The seven-year-old hugs her, and with his face buried in her stomach, asks, “Is this about the monsters?”_

_Masaki holds her son tighter.  “Yes, it is.  I’m going to make sure that they can’t hurt you or your friends again.”_

_“Not even my ghost friends?”_

_“Not even them.”_

_“Okay...”_

_“So you gotta be good for your dad, okay?  And don’t forget –”_

_“—a big brother comes first to protect his siblings.  I won’t – I’ll be so awesome, I’ll make sure Yuzu-chan and Karin-chan don’t miss you too much, and I’ll protect them from the monsters, too, like you’re doing for me, and them, and my friends!” Ichigo finishes with a grin._

_“Take care of yourself, too, okay Ichigo?”_

_“I will!”_

* * *

But the Quincies were called too late, and while they rampaged, they decimated the mad god’s army, and one even managed to put an arrow through his heart. Ultimately, though, they were only human, and so they, too, fell in the end.

Yet, instead of dispersing into reishi like their enemies, like their so very temporary allies, their human bodies fell from the heavens, and seeded the world with the corrupt reiatsu of Hueco Mundo, the Hollow World.  They may have defeated the mad god, but his was the last laugh heard ringing through the worlds.

The Quincy fell, and when they hit the earth, they transformed from mere humans into the skeletons of Warriors and pockets of sand filled with Hollows.

The Shinigami, their allies for this one moment, to whom they had entrusted their families in the event they died in the battle they took to the man who had so devastated the dead, remained silent, locked in other battles and in a different world altogether.

(Few know of their sacrifice.)

~IiI~

Kurosaki Ichigo jumps down from the eye socket of his mother’s skull to perch on her bleached, broken collar bone, pausing there to brush his hand against the stylized cross necklace that still hangs above her breastbone, caught in the fused vertebrae of her neck.

(Ichigo now knows enough of the signs to know that his mother died from a Cero to the back, that punched through her chest and felled her where she stood.  He’s seen it enough himself.

And this remains her only grave – in the shifting sands she died in, brought to earth by her human body.)

From his perch, he gives her skull a pat, and continues to clamber down her ribcage until he reaches the sands.

The sands, and the Monsters.

Ichigo smirks, emphasized by a half-mask fully of fangs and bright stripes around his eyes.  It’s alright.  He needed dinner anyways.

~IiI~

“Heeeeey, Urahara-san! I’ve got another bunch of horns, spines, tails, and some other things for you,” Ichigo calls into the shop, before stepping into the back to start unloading the various pieces of Hollows that tried to eat him after he’d descended from his mother’s skeleton.

It’s only the most basic of politeness that causes him to even bother to alert the other man to his presence, and ensuring he’s using the proper form.  Things like that don’t quite matter so much in the Desert, but then, just telling someone your name is a sign of respect, if not trust, there, since it means you want to speak with them again…or you want to know who you’re killing.

It’s different in Town, though.  While Kisuke had keyed him to whatever ward-like things cover his shop years ago, and “Ururu” and “Jinta” won’t be out in the shop this early in the day, he’s supposed to make noise, let people know he’s there, and a scuff of his foot or brushing hard against something isn’t enough, and flaring his powers is just downright suicidal, for all it’s the most common greeting in the Desert.  In the past, Ichigo used to just not bother saying anything, not to Kisuke, since switching manners was a pain and he was used to being alone. Sure he would run into Chad and Orihime, or Ishida (who he sees far more rarely, having his own mother’s grave to maintain, to prevent from getting swept further under the sands), but that’s not the same as daily human interaction. Occasionally he would see other Desert Children, but for the most part he kept to his part of the Desert, his home in his mother’s grave, and they to their’s.  But then Kisuke started to invite him in for tea, and somehow it seems politer now to say _something_ than to say nothing.

If it causes the customers to wrinkle their noses at him, when they catch sight of his gold on black eyes, especially when he so brazenly walks past the front of the shop and meets their own dark on white or light on white eyes, well.  He’s a so-called “ _Hollow Childe”_ , what were they expecting?

Still, it sets his instincts on edge, sensing the distrust and hate, but he knows better than to be seen acting aggressive, certainly can’t afford to be seen with a mask full of teeth, no matter how much he wishes otherwise.  This isn’t his home, this isn’t the Desert, and as much as he leaves trails of his powers around the shop to warn off other Children, other Hollows, this is Kisuke’s place and it exists in a Human Town.  The last thing Ichigo wants is to cause trouble for Kisuke, for the Humans to look closer at Ururu and Jinta or Tsukabishi-san or even Urahara himself.  He doesn’t want them to get one of the children like him, one of those who grew into their powers in safety and learned exorcisms instead of survival.

He may have the eyes of a Hollow, may occasionally have the mask of one, but he can die just as easily as a Human.

(In theory, at least. It’s not something he’d like to double check, although he’s come closer far more often than he’s ever told anyone.)

“Aaah, Ichigo-kun, thank you so much!  I’ll be out to pay you in a moment, once I finish up with these customers!”

“Alright.”

Ichigo keeps unloading the various pieces, separating them into piles based on size, strength, and what type of Hollow they came from – at least, for the one’s he can remember.   Sure, Kisuke is going to double check and probably reorder things, but at least this is the initial set up Ichigo has always seen him use.

“What’s the Hollow Childe doing here again?”

“I _know_ , didn’t it already come this week?”

“That’s what I thought, too!”

“Who knows, maybe it’s trying to evolve?  Maybe it’s spying on us?”

Ichigo rolls his eyes at the  _subtle_ whispers and hisses, but it’s no worse today than it’s been in the past.

(The time after his mother had died, and his father had revealed that he was a Shinigami, and left to fight the monsters, and he was left with his sisters, but before he was chased out of town.  That was a bad time, for him and his sisters.)

“Alright, Ichigo-kun, what do you have for me today?”

“Couple of cows, some kind of large cat, a mammoth, some snakes, a lizard or two” Ichigo says, shrugging.  “Nothing too unusual.”

“But you found me fully intact mammoth tusks!  If I use these in addition to some of that silver I have left over from that last reflector shield, I should be able to make a half dozen more…”

While reflector shields are only one of the few things that Kisuke sells, they’re his most popular creation. They’re able to reflect Ceros of even an _Adjuchas_ and Town people are fond of putting them on their roofs, to protect from the fliers.

Kisuke also makes tools and weapons to trap or kill Hollows, but most of those he trades with Desert Children for.

(And some people think that Kisuke is either completely oblivious, with his “I’m a happy idiot” mask, or completely uncaring, if they see him when he’s serious about something, but Ichigo just can’t see it.

Like, Kisuke was so much calmer than he would’ve been when asked to hand over Desert Children or otherwise track them so they could be killed – him in particular, since he’s one of the ones with something resembling a regular schedule, and people remember him from the first few years he’d come to Town, leaking reiatsu everywhere.  Ichigo would’ve probably just razed the Town Hall if he’d had that requested of him, instead of verbally eviscerating them and threatening to pack up and move elsewhere.

There may or may not have been an arsonist who attempted to set the Town Hall ablaze a few days later. Ichigo has no idea who might’ve done that.

And if something in his chest fluttered with the thought of Kisuke, of Ururu and Jinta, moving?  Well, the idle fantasy of them coming to live with him is something no one needs to know about.)

Aaaaand, now Ichigo has totally lost Kisuke to his mental computations and invention ideas.

“Urahara-san.”

Kisuke keeps muttering.

Ichigo sighs, and hisses, “ _Kisuke_.”

“Hm?  Oh, right!  Ichigo-kun, your regular package is ready, so why don’t you fill up your water jugs and I’ll finish sorting these, and then I’ll get it for you and give you the rest of your payment.”

“Sure,” Ichigo shrugs, and grabs the pouches Kisuke had helped him make out of Hollow guts and the occasional hide from where he’d placed them before he’d started sorting the bones.

Routines might get you killed – he’s known a few who made a Town visit too often, and has heard the stories of others who made a nearly daily stop over at the same town – but Ichigo can’t bring himself to break this one.

~IiI~

He opens his package once he gets back to his home – and some part of him, the one that remembers being seven and saying good-bye to his mother, who was otherwise a pretty well-adjusted brat before the world seemed to end, thinks it's a little morbid to sleep in his mother’s skull, but.  Well, it’s safe, and there’s something comforting about being surrounded by her presence nonetheless.

As usual, he has a selection of candy, some spices, dried fruits and nut mixes, a new flashlight and batteries, a few new books that look to be from Kisuke’s private collection, new headphones and an upgraded solar charger for his radio, stove, and music player, multivitamins (because like fuck he’s going to die from malnutrition if he can help it – his father used to be a doctor, and he’d read enough stories about scurvy and piracy.  He gets extras and hands them off to Chad, Orihime, Ishida, and any other friendlies he comes across, or who come across him.), and letters from Ururu and Jinta.

Letters from two people who, once upon a time, were called Yuzu and Karin and were his younger sisters, before he was forced to leave the Town they’d been in, with them in tow, and been found by Kisuke, who’d been able to spare Karin the pain of being a Desert Child with practice, control, and some device or another that hadn’t worked for Ichigo.

They talk about baking with Tsukabishi-san, soccer practice and random pick-up games with another Desert Child named Toushirou, school work, Hollow attack drills, and everything else that’s become the norm since the Quincy fell like angels.

Ichigo writes them back about seeing Chad the other day, the rise in the number of Hollows as a warning to be careful, how he’s figured out how to manifest a sword that talks at him, and how he managed to run straight through an entire group of Hollows two days ago when he was trying to use super speed, only to have to turn around and run back.

He writes them short stories, because what else is there to do at night when you’re alone in the desert?

He writes Kisuke a novel about survival, and tells him about new things he’s slowly discovering, about the withering effects of the sand, about burrowing Hollows, about hollow Quincy bones, and something that might be beneath the entire Desert itself.

He talks about trying to grow plants, and feeding them his spiritual pressure, and how that seems to mitigate the withering effects, no matter how little water he can sometimes spare them.

He talks about trying to find an oasis in the Desert, because they exist(ed) in deserts before the Fall, before the War.

Ichigo writes, and writes, and writes, and they’re not Sonnets or love poems, but Ichigo pours his heart out to Urahara Kisuke regardless.

(What is romance but appreciating the other person to their fullest?  How else can Ichigo say anything, but show he cares?)

And if the occasional letters Kisuke sends him are tucked away, under plastic to protect them as much as possible from the sand and the air, well, again, who’s going to say?

Ichigo’s talking sword can complain, but it’s not like he can get away from him.

~IiI~

Children with high levels of spiritual awareness were the most affected by the dramatic change to the Living World’s base spiritual energy levels.  They’ve adapted the best to surviving, if only because they can see the Hollows when they appear in the streets, or fly over the town.

But you don’t need many children to be a watch system, and those with power levels that are too high are simply not worth the risk, to some.  To many.

They are left at the edge of the Desert with Hollow-made weapons.  If they become one of its children, then it is one less beacon calling the Hollows, whom some consider their brethren.

~IiI~

Kisuke reads the letters Kurosaki Ichigo leaves with him.  Reads them, records the information, and goes on to read everything once again, if only so he can admire the intuitiveness and, at times, the shear inventiveness of his charges’ older brother.

(If he reads the letters a third time, it’s to ensure he didn’t miss anything, and not because he’s awed at the not so subtle meaning.

It has been a very, very long time since Urahara Kisuke was loved with this level of acceptance, if he ever was. But Ichigo doesn’t know a few key things that Kisuke can’t help but fear he’d spurn him for.

That Kisuke was the one to tell Kurosaki Masaki of Seireitei’s request for the Quincies’ assistance.  That Kisuke was the one to encourage Kurosaki Isshin to return to his Shinigami form, since the increase in ambient spiritual energy had risen considerably upon the Desert’s creation and consequently ensured that Isshin was back to full power much sooner than expected.  To say nothing of the fact that Kisuke was the one who, however unwittingly, provide the mad god, once named Aizen Sousuke, to gain access to the power and scientific possibilities he named Espada that eventually killed Kurosaki Masaki, even as she shot an arrow through the hogyoku and the mad god himself.)

So he’ll wait, and eventually there will be a day where he can invite Ichigo for tea and some of his sister’s and Tessai’s baking, and maybe then everything will come to light.

But he’s been trying to do that for years, and yet the truth has yet to leave his lips or his pen.  Instead, he makes comments, suggestions on other tests to run on his plants and with his sword, which things surprised him, encouragements.

He thinks it’s enough – it’s not his heart, not now, but, maybe it will still be enough for Ichigo.

(It’s not his heart, because he’s given his heart to Ichigo in pieces, scattered through the years, but then, Kisuke has perfected the art of being oblivious in his years around Humans. Sometimes he even manages to fool himself for a moment or two.)

* * *

That's a wrap!

Kudos, comments, concrit welcome!

~Fins

**Author's Note:**

> So yeah. Quincy's apparently somehow became gigantic skeletons upon their death, Ichigo is living in his mom's skull, and there's possibly the super cool chamber underneath Masaki's skeleton like in Nausicaa, and Karin and Yuzu are now answering to Jinta and Ururu, respectively.
> 
> ...Because they needed to hide, and Jinta and Ururu grew up with the weird influx of spiritual energy, but they grew up like hella fast, so yeah.
> 
> (How the fuck did this get so long wtf??? I didn't cover _shit_ )


End file.
